While a vehicle is manufactured, many parts, reaching up to about twenty to thirty thousand, are assembled and/or welded in the manufacturing process. In an assembly process of the vehicle body, a body panel, such as a trunk lid, is manipulated to be moved to an assembly line, e.g., using an overhead loader.
An apparatus for manipulating a vehicle body panel, such as a trunk lid typically includes rotation blocks that rotate on their hinges by first cylinders at both sides of a base plate. The base plate is connected to an overhead loader and clamps. Each clamp is mounted at each rotation block and clamps an end of the trunk lid with a locator.
Such a typical apparatus for manipulating a vehicle body panel is usually dedicated for exclusive use with a specific body panel, such as a trunk lid. It is generally believed that a very complex structure of such a clamp and many peripheral devices are required to cope with various types of vehicles, which in turn implies necessity of a large space for such apparatus for manipulating vehicle body panels. In addition, a relative high deviation occurs in an assembling position after the apparatus has moved the vehicle body panel to a desired assembly position. Therefore, a worker must manually adjust a position of the vehicle body panel while mounting the vehicle body panel to an exact assembly position of the vehicle.
The information disclosed in this Background of the Invention section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention and should not be taken as an acknowledgement or any form of suggestion that this information forms the prior art that is already known to a person of ordinary skill in the art.